Yet, Newton's thoughts began to turn to Christ. Certainly, he was beyond hope and beyond saving, even if the Scriptures were true. John Newton had rejected his mother's teachings and had led other sailors into unbelief. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer." ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also laughed at your calamity I will mock when your fear cometh: when your fear cometh as desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind when distress and anguish come upon you. He remembered Proverbs 1:24-31, and in the midst of that storm, those verses seemed to confirm Newton in his despair: Some of those early childhood teachings came to mind now. His mother had prayed he would become a minister and had early taught him the Scriptures and Isaac Watts' Divine Songs for Children. John Newton was known as "The Great Blasphemer." He sank so low at one point that he was even a servant to slaves in Africa for a brief period. Sailors were not noted for the refinement of their manners, but Newton had a reputation for profanity, coarseness, and debauchery, which even shocked many sailors.
Since the age of eleven, he had lived a life at sea. His life seemed as ruined and wrecked as the battered ship he was trying to steer through the storm. With the storm raging fiercely, Newton had time to think. From one o'clock until midnight, he was at the helm. On the eleventh day of the storm, sailor John Newton was too exhausted to pump, so he was tied to the helm and tried to hold the ship to its course. The sailors had little hope of survival, but they mechanically worked the pumps, trying to keep the vessel afloat. Its canvas sails were ripped, and the wood on one side of the ship had been torn away and splintered. The Greyhound thrashed about in the north Atlantic storm for over a week.
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